Roland RUGERO (fiction writer; Burundi) is the author of the novels Les oniriques (2007) and Baho (2012), and the editor of the literary pages of Iwacu Magazine. A contributor to Mémoire du Colloque Littéraire and the Dictionary of African Biographies (2011), Rugero is currently at work on Amaguru n’Amaboko, the second-ever feature film made in Burundi. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2013 Resident
critic, editor, poet
Teemu MANNINEN (poet; Finland) is a critic for Helsingin Sanomat, a columnist for the website Books from Finland, a producer of the Helsinki Poetics Conference, a frequent creative writing teacher, and a coordinator for the publishing cooperative Osuuskunta Poesia. A co-editor of Suomalaisia nykyrunoilijoita 2, an encyclopedia of contemporary Finnish poets, Manninen is the author of five poetry collections, including Säkeitä [Verses] (2010), Futurama (2010; the winner of the 2010 Tiiliskivi Prize), and most recently Paha äiti [Bad Mother] (2012). He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2015 Resident
critic, editor, poet
CHENG Ching-hang Matthew 鄭政恆 (poet, editor; Hong Kong) is the author of the poetry collection [The First Book of Recollection], co-author of [Wait and See:The Collection of Six Hong Kong Young Writers], and the editor of [An Anthology of Hong Kong Poetry of the 1950s], [Hong Kong Short Stories 2004-2005], and [Hong Kong Cinema Retrospective 2011], among others. The former Vice-Chair of the Hong Kong Film Critics Society, in 2013 he received the Hong Kong Arts Development Award for Best Artist (Arts Criticism). He participates courtesy of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation.
2015 Resident
editor, fiction writer
Kirill Timurovich AZERNYI (fiction writer; Russia) has published two books of prose [The Present, 2011] and [A Doomsday Man, 2015]. He is the publisher of the magazine Zdes, dedicated to contemporary experimental prose, poetry, and essays. His participation is made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2016 Resident
editor, non-fiction writer, poet, translator
Subodh SARKAR (poet, translator, editor, non-fiction prose writer, India) has published 29 books of poems. Among his honors are the Gangadhar Meher National Award from Sambalpur University, and the Sahitya Academy Award. A former editor of Indian Literature and the president of the Kobita (poetry) Academy, West Bengal, he is currently at work on an autobiography in poetry. His visiting professorship at the University of Iowa is funded by the Nehru-Fulbright Fellowship.
2017 Visitor, 2017 50th Anniversary Guest
critic, editor, scholar, translator
Tim Parks (UK/Italy) is a novelist, essayist, travel writer and translator based in Italy. Author of sixteen novels, including Europa (1997), Destiny (1999), Cleaver (2006), and more recently In Extremis (2017), he has translated works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Tabucchi, Machiavelli and Leopardi. While running a post-graduate degree course in translation at International University of Languages and Media in Milan, he writes regularly for the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. His many non-fiction works include A Season with Verona (2002), An Italian Education (2006), and Italian Ways (2014). His critical work includes the essay collection Where I’m Reading From (2014), The Novel, A Survival Skill (2015), and Translating Style: A Literary Approach to Translation, published in a revised edition in 2007.
2017 Resident
editor, fiction writer, poet
Tilottama MAJUMDER তিলোত্তমা মজুমদার (fiction writer, poet; India) won the Ananda Puroshkar, given for excellence in Bengali literature, for her novel Basudhara (2003); more than ten titles have followed. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into several Indian languages, including English; she also writes for children. She works at the Ananda Publishers in Kolkata. Her participation is courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2017 Resident
editor, fiction writer, poet
Yaara SHEHORI (fiction writer, poet, editor; Israel) is a literary editor at Keter Publishing House with a PhD in Hebrew literature. She has published many works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction—most recently the novel [Aquarium] (2016). In 2015, she received both the Levi Eshkol Prime Minister’s Prize and the Minister of Culture Award for Hebrew Literature in the ‘young authors’ category; in 2017 [Aquarium] was awarded the Bernstein Prize as best novel in Hebrew. She participates courtesy of the United States-Israeli Education Foundation.
2017 Visitor, 2017 50th Anniversary Guest
critic, editor, scholar, translator
Tim Parks (UK/Italy) is a novelist, essayist, travel writer and translator based in Italy. Author of sixteen novels, including Europa (1997), Destiny (1999), Cleaver (2006), and more recently In Extremis (2017), he has translated works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Tabucchi, Machiavelli and Leopardi. While running a post-graduate degree course in translation at International University of Languages and Media in Milan, he writes regularly for the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. His many non-fiction works include A Season with Verona (2002), An Italian Education (2006), and Italian Ways (2014). His critical work includes the essay collection Where I’m Reading From (2014), The Novel, A Survival Skill (2015), and Translating Style: A Literary Approach to Translation, published in a revised edition in 2007.
2019 Resident
activist, editor, filmmaker, poet
ARAI Takako 新井 高子 (poetry; Japan) has published three poetry collections, including Tamashii dansu [Soul Dance] which won the 2008 Oguma Hideo Prize. Since 1998, she has been an editor for the poetry journal Mi’Te; she has also edited a volume of poems about, and is producing a film connected to, the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan. The poetry volume Factory Girls is forthcoming in English. Arai teaches Japanese and poetry at Saitama University. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2019 Resident
critic, editor, fiction writer, performance artist, publisher
Róbert GÁL (poetry, fiction; Czech Republic), a literary editor and publisher, works at intersections of genres and media. His six volumes of philosophical prose have been translated from his native Slovak into English and Czech; he has collaborated with composers, dancers, filmmakers, and visual artists in performance and installation work in Europe and the U.S. His participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2019 Resident
activist, editor, filmmaker, non-fiction writer, performance artist, poet, translator
Roy Chicky ARAD רועי צ'יקי ארד (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, performance; Israel) is an activist, musician/performer and writer, with eight published volumes of poetry and prose. He edits the poetry magazine Ma'ayan, translates, largely poetry, and writes for the daily Ha’aretz. The Culture Guerilla group, which he co-founded, takes poetry into Israeli streets. He participates courtesy of Fulbright Israel.
2019 Resident
editor, fiction writer, non-fiction writer
Clara CHOW 赵燕芬 (fiction, nonfiction, drama; Singapore) is a short story writer, editor, columnist, co-founder of the arts and literature magazine WeAreAWebsite.com, and author of two short story collections. Named among Singapore’s Top 12 Writers to Watch, she won the 2018 Jane Geske Award for her story “Siren (Redux).” Chow participates courtesy of National Arts Council Singapore.
2021 Resident
editor, fiction writer, journalist, playwright, screenwriter
Alexandra K* (KATSAROU) Αλεξάνδρα Κ* (fiction, drama, screenwriting, journalism; Greece) has collaborated with the National Theatre of Greece, the Greek National Opera and other major cultural institutions. Ηer 2018 play Επαναστατικές Μέθοδοι για τον Καθαρισμό της Πισίνας σας [Revolutionary Ways to Clean Your Swimming Pool] has been translated widely, and received a Eurodram 2019 Prize; her most recent play [Milk, Blood], based on Medea, premiered at the ancient theater of Epidaurus. She is a regular contributor to Greek magazines and newspapers. Her participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2021 Resident
editor, non-fiction writer, playwright, poet, translator
Habib TENGOUR (poet, essayist, playwright, translator, scholar, editor; Algeria) has published over twenty volumes of writing, most recently the poetry volume La Sandale d'Empédocle (2021). His poetry has been translated into English, German, Italian, Arabic, and many other languages; in turn, he translates poetry from the Arabic and the English. In 2016, that work garnered him a Prix européen de poésie Dante. He also directs the series “Poèmes du monde” for the Algerian publisher APIC. His participation was made possible by the Paul and Hualing Nieh Engle Fund.
2021 Resident
editor, poet, translator
Khosiyat RUSTAMOVA (poet, journalist, editor; Uzbekistan) has since the mid-1990s published ten poetry volumes; her poetry has been translated into some 30 languages. She herself translates poetry from the Russian, the Turkish, and the Azerbaijani into Uzbek. A recipient of national awards in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, in 2018 she won the International Poetry Festival in Thailand for her poetry. She is the editor-in-chief of the [World of the Books] magazine. Her participation is made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2021 Resident, 2022 Spring Resident
editor, poet, scholar, translator
Fahri ÖZ (translator, scholar, poet; Turkey) has translated into Turkish many British and American 19th– and 20th-century poets, and is currently bringing into Turkish Walt Whitman’s and Emily Dickinson’s collected works. He is the co-editor of a collection of “sudden fiction,” Hayat Kısa Proust Uzun [Life is Short, Proust is Long] (2000), and the author of the poetry volume Meşrutiyet Çok Bulutlu On Beş Santigrat Yağmur Olasılığı Sıfır [Meşrutiyet Street: Heavily Overcast, 15 Degrees Celsius with Zero Chance of Rain] (2019). Until 2017, when he was dismissed for signing the Academics for Peace declaration, he taught at Ankara University. His participation is sponsored by the Institute for International Education, the University of Iowa, and private gifts.
2021 Visitor
activist, editor, fiction writer, non-fiction writer, poet
The recipient of a Caine Prize, a Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book, and the Windham-Campbell Prize for Literary Achievement, Helon HABILA is the author of six volumes of fiction and non-fiction, the editor of several collections of writing, and a publisher. His most recent novel is Travelers (2019). The first African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia, he was the inaugural Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College; his current appointment is at George Mason University, where Professor Habila teaches in the disciplines of Creative Writing, English, and Global Affairs. An IWP 2004 alum, he returns as our 2021 Ida Beam Distinguished Visitor.
2021 Visitor
activist, editor, fiction writer, journalist, non-fiction writer, physician, poet
IWP '05 alumna Ma Thida is a Burmese surgeon, writer, poet, human rights activist and former prisoner of conscience. Among her nine books are The Sunflower (1999), The Roadmap (2011) and the memoir Sanchaung, Insein, Harvard (2012). Recently elected as Chair of The Writers in Prison committee of PEN International, she is the founder and past president of PEN Myanmar and past board member of PEN International; in 2016 she was the first recipient of the Václav Havel Foundation’s “Disturbing the Peace” award. At present (2021), she is a visiting research associate at Yale’s Southeast Asia Studies program.
2022 Fall Resident
editor, fiction writer, journalist, poet
Mohamed KHEIR محمد خير (fiction writer, poet, journalist, editor, lyricist; Egypt) won the Egyptian Ministry of Culture Award for his first poetry collection, Leil Khargi (2002); both his story collections Afarit Al Radio (2011) and Remsh Al Ein (2016) received The Sawiris Cultural Award. In 2021, the second of his three novels was published as Slipping by Two Lines Press. Alongside his literary work and a career in journalism, Kheir also writes lyrics for young singers from Egypt and Lebanon. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
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